Pickled Head of This Russian Not in Any Museum

THE KUNSTKAMERA OF ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, is an art and ethnography museum stuffed full of more than 2,000,000 objects. Within its blue-and-white walls, you can find a taxidermied pangolin, Native American baskets, and more than a dozen jarred, pickled fetuses floating in a suspicious yellow liquid, prepared by Dutch anatomist Frederick Ruysch. What you won't find, however, is what's often cited as one of its main attractions: the severed head of the supposed lover of Peter the Great's wife, in a glass jar.